


Black Pressure

by Qpenguin98



Category: Sym-Bionic Titan
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Lance whump, Nightmares, Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, post season one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 17:29:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9248123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qpenguin98/pseuds/Qpenguin98
Summary: The nightmares aren’t exactly frequent, but they’re often enough to be uncomfortable. If it was the Mutraddi again, Ilana would be showing signs, but she isn’t, so he keeps quiet.





	

It’s weeks before Lance gets used to sleeping in his own bed again. Being constantly on the move, sleeping in motel beds and train cars set him on edge in the worst way. The comfortable squish of his mattress doesn’t feel right anymore.

He suspects Ilana has the same problem, but he won’t say anything about it.

The nightmares aren’t exactly frequent, but they’re often enough to be uncomfortable. If it was the Mutraddi again, Ilana would be showing signs, but she isn’t, so he keeps quiet. Octus always gives him this blank look and asks him what he’s doing up at two three four in the morning when he ends up walking around the house, unable to go back to sleep.

He’ll check on Ilana, make sure she’s not dead or missing or melting into her surroundings. The dreams get weird like that.

Sometimes, Lance leaves through his window. He walks in the cool night-morning air until his brain is cleared enough to go back to sleep. It’s not uncommon that he ends up walking through to the sunrise, slipping back into the house just before Ilana wakes up. School is difficult on minimal hours of sleep, but it’s better than trying to sleep with the nightmares.

“Ilana,” he asks one day at lunch. “What are your dreams like?”

She gives him that look like she’s sifting through his brain, and it’s difficult not to squirm under her stare.

“They’re mostly about Galaluna, if I can remember them when I wake up,” she states when she’s done assessing him. “Sometimes I dream of my father, and even if they’re happy dreams, it’s bittersweet.”

He nods like he understands, and takes a bite of his sandwich. She gives him another look, takes a sip of her drink, and leans down on the table with her arms crossed.

“What do _you_ dream about?”

He stalls for time with the sandwich, taking another bite as she finishes speaking.

“Sometimes it’s about Galaluna,” he says honestly. He’ll omit the bad parts. “Sometimes you and Octus are there. There’s no real pattern, usually just whatever I’m thinking about before I go to bed.”

“You think about me before you go to bed?”

He swallows bread into what feels like his lungs. “No,” he says too quickly, choking on air. Ilana hurriedly passes him her drink, and he takes it gratefully. “No,” he says again.

Ilana scoffs. “Well that’s what you said.”

“I meant,” he says, face turning red. “I meant that sometimes you pop in my thought before I fall asleep. I don’t actively think about you before going to bed. Not unless there’s some kind of danger around.”

“Lance, you take your job way too seriously.”

“You died once. It’s my job to protect you.”

She pauses. “I… I died?”

He mentally curses himself. Him and Octus had agreed to leave that part out when they told her what happened when she turned into a Mutraddi monster. It was better if she didn’t know.

“Um,” he says before taking a bite of his sandwich. “Gotta go,” he says around a mouthful of ham.

He makes to stand, but Ilana grabs his wrist so hard he slams back down into his chair. He stares at her, wide eyed.

“No,” she says. “You don’t get to just vaguely tell me that I died and then leave. You owe me an explanation. What do you mean I died?”

This is what Kimmy and Octus enter on. Octus gives him a carefully neutral look and Kimmy just looks confused.

“We’ll just, um, we’ll take this somewhere else. Ilana?”

She follows him, though he can tell she doesn’t want to. They stand in an empty hallway and she looks at him expectantly.

“The night you turned into that Mutraddi, your heart stopped when we broke the connection.”

Fear flashes across her face, and Lance scrubs at his eyes. He put that look there. He’s meant to protect her, as much as she can protect herself, and he’s making her more afraid.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Octus and I thought it would be better if we didn’t. You’d already had an awful night, I didn’t want to make it worse.”

“That’s not for you to decide. I _died_ and you just thought—”

“I’m sorry.” It’s raw and honest enough that she stops yelling at him, actually looks at him.

“What’s with you lately?”

“What do you mean?”

“It feels like I’m walking on eggshells around you, and not in a normal way. You never want to argue your point anymore. You’re quieter. What happened?”

“I’m just tired,” he says turning to leave. She grabs his arm, and he stops.

“Lance, what is it?”

“It’s nothing, really Ilana. We should go back anyway. They’re waiting.”

It takes her a couple seconds to follow him, but she does, eventually.

\---

Ilana is sitting against a tree trunk, head low so he can’t see her face.

“Illana?”

She doesn’t make any move to acknowledge she hears him, and he walks a bit closer.

“Ilana, are you alright?”

She still doesn’t move, and he reaches out a hand to touch her shoulder.

Scaly, green-gray skin is what greets his palm, and he recoils. She lifts her head up to him, nose gone, eyes glowing yellow. Her chest isn’t moving with any sort of heartbeat or breathing, and he can feel his throat closing.

“Lance,” her mouth gravels out, and he takes a step back. “Lance, why didn’t you save me? Why didn’t you try something different? Why couldn’t you save me?”

“No, I- you’re not—”

“Lance,” she presses forward, hands coming up to grip painfully at his shoulders. One hand grabs his and presses it against her chest. His eye flit between hers and the hand. There’s no heartbeat.

“Why couldn’t you save me from this, Lance?”

“I-I… Ilana you’re—”

She sneers at him, getting up close to his face. He can’t move, frozen in place, fear crawling its way up his throat.

“You failed!” She screams in his face and lunges.

He drops down down down into someplace entirely new, and he feels too young for his body. He looks down at himself and finds smaller hands, shorter legs. He looks up to find his father staring into the falling apart rift gate, shoulders steeled.

“Father?” he asks, small and weak.

His father turns ever so slightly to look at him, and a smile graces his lips.

“Lance,” he says gently, and he can feel the fear leaving his body. “Come up here with me.”

It feels foreboding, the offer to join his father next to the thing that could cause so much damage, but he can’t help but say yes, making his way up next to him. His father rests a hand on a shoulder, and pride swells in his chest.

“With this, we can travel galaxies with ease.” He leans down to Lance’s height, smile still there. “But first, someone needs to test it.”

“Who?”

His father blinks once, smiles bigger, and tighten his grip on Lance’s shoulder.

“You!” He shoves and Lance goes tumbling through open space-

Right into his body as he stabs his traitorous superior officer in the stomach. This had been a choice, a good choice, but the action lies in the back of his mind, a sick feeling twisting in his gut.

The man chokes, and Lance lets go of the sword. He doesn’t- he doesn’t want to kill anyone like this. Up close, watching as they bleed because of him, as the light leaves their eyes.

And suddenly the man is no longer himself, but Octus, stabbed through the chest by the energy monster. He jerks and smokes and Lance feels the grief of losing family flood his veins. It lasts forever, his death. And then the remains of his face start melting into one another, black goo squeezing out of his orifices.

“Lance,” he says, spitting the goop out. Lance drops to his knees, gasping for breath.

“Lance,” he sounds more urgent, and Lance wonders if this is his judgement, watching those he let die go over and over.

“Lance!”

He jerks awake, shuddering his breaths. Octus is on one side of him, Ilana on the other. She’s gripping his hand in hers, eyes full of worry.

“It appears you were having a nightmare,” Octus states. “Your heartrate was elevated, and brain activity is at an all time high for sleep.”

“You were screaming,” Ilana says gently. He presses his face into his knees, wills his eyes to stop stinging.

“It’s fine,” he says shakily. “I’m fine, go back to bed.”

“You are _not_ fine! You are anything but fine. This is why you’ve been acting different, isn’t it? The nightmares.”

“Ilana, please just go back to bed. I can handle this.”

“Octus says you’ve been waking up from your nightmares and not going back to sleep for hours after. That you leave the house to go on walks at god knows when in the morning.”

He sends Octus a look, and he shrugs, eyebrows scrunched together. “We’re only trying to help, Lance.”

“I don’t need your help.” He shoves the blanket off himself roughly, starts pulling on a pair of pants.

“Stop running away! Look at you. You’re trying to leave again!”

“I’m not- I’m not running away. I just… I’m just trying to clear my head and this is the only way I know how right now. If you could just let me do that, it would be great.”

“Unbelievable,” Ilana spits out as he pulls the hoodie over his head. “Just let us help you.”

“I don’t need your help,” he repeats venomously. “I need to leave.”

“What are you trying to do?”

“I don’t know!” he shouts, and the other two are dead silent. “I don’t know what I’m trying to do. I don’t know what I want. I’m just- I’m just trying to- I’m trying.”

His voice cracks on the last word, much to his dismay. He hasn’t cried since… well, since Octus died. His breaths stutter and he can feel the steady burn of tears in his eyes. One horrifyingly embarrassing sob hiccups out, and he sinks to the floor, hiding his face in his knees.

He can feel Octus sit down next to him, wrap a solid arm around him, and it’s like a dam bursts. He cries into his knees, soaking patches of his pants.

“I am sorry, Lance. Had I known that things were this bad, I would have acted sooner.”

He can hear Ilana sit down in front of him. She takes his hand again.

“I get them too, sometimes. Not this bad, but they’re there.”

He looks up at her, water clouding his vision, and rubs roughly at his eyes with his open hand.

“Usually they’re about my father, our people. It’s difficult to wake up from. Sometimes it’s you, sometimes it’s Octus. It never ends nicely.”

The crying’s tapering off, slowly.

“But sometimes I see Galaluna as it was, how it should be. Flowers in bloom, people happy in the streets, children laughing. I know it might not have seemed… much like a home for you in the military schools, but it was beautiful. Sometimes you’re in my dreams, both of you, and we’re safe, how we should be, together in the castle.”

“Ilana, I’m—”

“Don’t you dare say you’re sorry.”

He doesn’t.

“If you think you can get away with running from us all the time, you can’t. We’re together for a reason. My father may have sent you to protect me, but I’m here to protect you too.”

“Agreed. We are all here for each other. We’re here to give Galaluna hope, but we must take care of one another. You are a part of this family, Lance.”

The word family sends a watery smile onto his face, and Ilana and Octus mirror him.

“Thank you,” he says quietly.

“Do you want to go back to sleep?” Ilana asks him.

Exhaustion is wearing in his mind. It’s been over a week since he got a solid night of sleep. He nods, and the three of them make their way back to the bed.

“Would you like us to stay? I can sit and monitor things for you.”

“You really don’t need to—”

“Are you sure?” Ilana sits on the bed next to him. “It might be easier for you if someone else was there. For both of us.”

He knows what she’s doing, putting herself in the equation so he’ll actually consider it, but he’s too tired to say no, so he nods again, slips back under the covers with her. He’s afraid of this, he realizes, this close intimacy with her, but he shoves that aside and lets her snuggle closer to him.

He sleeps easier after that.

**Author's Note:**

> where the fuck did this come from  
> i just finished watching sym bionic today and apparently i just needed to get the fanfiction out.  
> i have work in the morning this was a mistake


End file.
